


Mutating Mittens

by Andrea_ODown



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-29 09:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andrea_ODown/pseuds/Andrea_ODown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is story for one of my best friends. She told me of her idea that Mittens (you remember the little kitten from "New Friend, Old Enemy", right? ;) ) gets mutated and first attacks Mikey, but then befriends him. And this is how I imagine her story. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mittens tiptoed over to the window and with a smooth jump landed on the window bench. She stretched her slender body and extended her sharp claws while doing so. Over the last six months the former small kitten had turned into a beautiful cat, still a young cat, sure, a teenager in human terms, but nothing was reminiscent of the cute, a bit clumsy kitten she had been half a year ago.  
Mittens yawned and looked out of the window. It was getting dark, but still not time for dinner, so she had some time left. She looked down into the side street and spotted two teenage boys, hanging around there. She knew those boys, and they were always up to play with Mittens.  
A loud meow escaped Mittens’ mouth and seconds later her owner marched up to her.  
“What is it, Mittens?” the young man asked while stroking the head of his cat. The young cat closed her eyes for a moment and purred loudly before looking out of the window again and meowing once more.  
“Wanna go out and play?” her owner asked. Mittens meowed again.  
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he chuckled and opened the window.  
Mittens jumped out of the window and onto the fire escape which she now was climbing down. Moments later she reached the side street.  
Meowing loudly she marched over to the two teenagers.  
“Hey there, Mittens!” one of the boys greeted her and the other patted her head for a second.  
Mittens answered with loud purring and rubbing up against the boys’ legs.  
The boys were talking about school, their favorite cartoons and comics when another teenage boy came running down the side street.  
“Guys, guys!” he called out. “I gotta show you something!”  
He came to a halt in front of the boys and put down his backpack.  
The other two looked at him with an asking look in their eyes.  
“What is it?” one of them asked.  
“Check this out!” the boy with the backpack said as he opened it and pulled out a canister with a glowing liquid in it.  
“Whoa…,” the two other boys uttered.  
“What on earth is that?” one of them asked.  
“No idea,” the boy with the backpack answered. “I found it in abandoned warehouse. Pretty cool, huh?”  
Mittens looked at the canister. She liked the colors of the glowing liquid. It looked quite interesting, and it made such a nice sound when the canister was moved a bit. She wanted to play with it, she wanted to touch it with her little paws.  
She stared at the canister and jumped up to touch it.  
“No, Mittens!” the boy said, holding the canister a bit higher. “That’s no toy!”  
Mittens’ eyes were still glued to the canister, her muscles tightened as she hunkered down, and then jumped for it.  
She tried to sink her claws into the canister, but slid, and instead her claws sank down into the boys’ hand.  
“Ouch!” the boy cried out and tried to shake the young cat off. While doing so he let go of the canister. Mittens couldn’t hold on any longer, and moments later she and the canister were sent flying to the ground. The canister broke and the liquid was spilled all over the young cat. She hissed and ran away.  
“Now that’s just great! Not only is the canister broken, Mittens’ owner is going to hate us now because he has to bath her,” one of the boys announced.  
“Knowing him I guess he will make us bath her,” the second boys said.  
“That is if he finds out it was us,” the third boy said.  
The other boys looked at him, blinking a few times.  
“Do you want to bath Mittens? You know how she is!”  
“You have a point. Let’s go!”  
And the next second the boys were running out of the side street.  
Mittens on the other hand had crouched down next to a waste container. Something was terribly wrong. Her whole body was aching, and as she tried to climb under the waste container, she somehow couldn’t make it. She didn’t know what was going on. She had climbed under that container this morning because she had spotted a mouse there, but now she didn’t fit in. What was wrong?  
Maybe her owner knew what to do. Besides, it was time for dinner anyway. And with that she set off for home.

“Mittens! Mittens!” the young man cried for his cat, leaning out of the open window. Where was she? It was time for dinner, and Mittens never was late for that.  
Moments later a shadowy figure landed on the fire escape. The silhouette was that of a woman, but when the figure stepped into the light the young man’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened in horror. There was a creature standing in front of him, its body covered in black fur with some white marks, its cat-like eyes shimmered in green and yellow, and its tail swished from one side to the other.  
“What are you?” he cried out.  
The creature looked at him and frowned, its mouth moved.  
“Me…meow…Mi…Mittens…meow…me…Mittens…me,” it said.  
The man screamed and drew back. “Get away from me!”  
“Me…Mittens,” the creature said again, but the man just screamed again, and when the creature tried to climb through the open window, the man grasped a vase and threw it at the creature.  
“Vicious mutant! Get away from me!” he cried out.  
The vase hit the window bench and broke into pieces, one of the shards hitting the creature’s face. The creature hissed, moved back and climbed up the fire escape and disappeared into the darkness.

Mittens landed on a rooftop later that night. She cowered down, her mind racing. What had happened back there? Her owner who normally was so kind had thrown a vase at her, calling her a vicious mutant. Something was terribly wrong.  
She looked down her body. It looked so different from her normal appearance. She looked at her paws that now looked like hands, each hand with four fingers. She tensed the fingers on her right hand and her claws extended. At least they were still there. She looked around on the rooftop and spotted a puddle of rain water. She crawled over to it and hunkered over it. She looked at her reflection in the water. Was that really her face? It looked so much more human-like. Plus there was long black hair framing it. Her eyes still looked like those of a cat. She opened her mouth and saw her fangs were still there. So she wasn’t completely defenseless. She had her claws and fangs. She could defend herself if she had to.  
Her fingers touched the collar she was still wearing – the collar her owner had given her, red with a golden heart-shaped pendant. She tipped the pendant with one finger. There was her name engraved on it – Mittens. That was her. She was Mittens. She always would be Mittens.  
The cat-mutant stood up, lowering her eyes one more time on her reflection in the water – a reflection that seemed to belong to someone else. But it was her. She knew it. It might feel wrong, but there was nothing to be done about it right now.  
Or was there? She remembered something that had happened months ago when that green turtle-mutant had found her on that rooftop and had wanted to bring her back to her owner. But her owner had freaked out. Her owner had been afraid, and as a good cat she had known immediately what to do. She had attacked that mutant, fought him with all her strength, but being a little kitten that hadn’t been much. He had shaken her off easily.  
Her owner had been afraid of that mutant like he had been afraid of her today. Her owner must be thinking all mutants were evil. But she wasn’t evil. She was still his cat. She just had to show him that she was different. Maybe if she could capture that mutant he had been so afraid of and bringing him to her owner as a gift like she did when she managed to capture a small mouse or a butterfly, he would understand. He had never freaked out when she had brought him a gift. Yes, bringing this mutant as a gift would make him understand. He would understand and see her as his pet cat again. He would welcome her back home again. She just had to capture that mutant first.  
She took a few steps, then looked down her body again. Something felt wrong. Not only her new body, something seemed to be missing. She frowned. And then it hit her. She was naked! Yes, her body was still covered with fur, but now that her body was so much like a human’s – she even had breasts, for cat’s sake! – she felt naked for the first time in her life. She growled silently. Who would ever have thought a cat could feel naked? But on second thought, she was no normal cat any longer.  
She scanned her surroundings and spotted clotheslines on a nearby rooftop. She jumped over to that rooftop and grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. She slipped into the T-shirt. It was tight, bringing out her breasts, but she somehow liked that. Then she used her claws to make a hole in the back of the shorts for her tail, then put them on. Yes, the shorts were tight as well, but it suited her. She was sure about that one. For the first time that night she smiled.  
Not a cat-like smile by blinking her eyes, no, a human-like smile. The corners of her mouth lifted. It felt strange and good at the same time.  
Then she looked around. She had to find that turtle-mutant. As fast as possible.

Luckily for Mittens, the four brothers were on their evening patrol. And they weren’t that far away at the moment.  
Leo had just stopped his team on nearby roof-top and scanned their surroundings.  
“It has been too quiet the last weeks,” he said with a frown.  
“Yeah, we didn’t get into any fights,” Raph confirmed with a sigh. “This is getting boring.”  
The moment he said that someone attacked Mikey from behind, pushing him to the ground.  
“You were saying?” the youngest turtle asked, drawing his nunchucks.  
“Alright!” Raph announced cheerfully before he kicked whoever had attacked Mikey into the stomach, sending him or her to the ground.  
That someone hissed loudly, but now exposed to the light the four brothers saw a humanoid cat now getting back on her feet.  
“Another mutant?” Donnie asked.  
“Wow, that was pretty lame for a brainiac, Donnie,” Mikey answered. “Even I could have told you that this is another mutant.”  
“Haha, very funny!” his older brother replied.  
Then they attacked this cat-mutant. All she did to fight them back was some major clawing and biting, but she focused on Mikey all the time, lunging at him whenever she could. So Donnie was able to hit her over the head with his bo, thus knocking her out.  
The mutant was lying face down on the ground.  
Mikey moved closer.  
“Mikey, be careful!” Leo warned.  
“Why should I be?” Mikey asked. “She’s out cold.”  
And with that he grabbed the mutant by the shoulders and turned her on her back. He looked over her, suddenly catching a glimpse of the golden pendant on her collar. He reached for it, reading what was engraved on it.  
“Mittens?!” he cried out.

When Mittens woke up she felt dizzy. Her vision was blurry when she opened her eyes but she forced them to stay open. And finally her vision became clear. She was in a room, lying on a bed. She sat up.  
“Oh, look!” a voice said and she could hear someone approaching. She hissed.  
“Hey, no need to get angry!” Mikey said as he came to stand next to the bed. “I just want to talk to you!”  
The cat-mutant hissed again. “Me…you!”  
“Meow?” Mikey said, scratching his head.  
“No, you!”  
“Okay.”  
Mittens cowered down, lunging at him, but Mikey jumped to the side, so Mittens landed on the floor.  
“Where am I?” she asked while she turned around and lunged at Mikey again who again dodged her attack.  
“In my room,” the green mutant answered. “And now stop this! I don’t want to hurt you!”  
Mittens attacked him once more, but her attack was useless again.  
“Please stop it, Mittens,” Mikey said again. “If you keep this up, my brothers will be here in no time, and they don’t have a problem with hurting you.”  
Mittens bared her teeth, but then jumped on the bed and sat down.  
“Why am I here?” she asked.  
“I couldn’t leave you back there,” Mikey answered and sat down next to her. “You were unconscious and totally defenseless. Heck, you can’t even defend yourself properly when you’re awake!”  
This earned him another hiss from Mittens.  
“Sorry,” he said, grinning insecurely. “But it’s true.”  
Mittens lowered her eyes and sighed. “I know.”  
“What happened to you anyway? Last time I saw you, you were some cute little kitten.”  
“And I was a beautiful young cat this morning,” Mittens said. “But then I got showered with this mysterious glowing ooze, and next thing I know I looked like this. I went back home, but my owner freaked out.”  
“I remember that one.” Mikey nodded. He then looked Mittens in the eye. “Why did you attack us, me in particular?”  
“Because I have to show my owner that I’m still his little cat. He likes it when I bring gifts, and when I bring him you he will recognize me and take me back. He is so afraid of you because he thinks you are evil, so if I can show him that I am not evil by bringing you to him, I can be his cat again.”  
“You really think so?”  
Mittens nodded.  
“And do you think I’m evil as well?”  
“Not anymore. Besides you could have left me stranded. But my owner thinks you are. And I am his cat.”  
Mittens thought of her owner, of her home. She teared up.  
Mikey sat down next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You really miss him, huh?”  
Mittens nodded, the tears running down her cheeks.  
“Well then, bring me to your owner.”  
Mittens’ eyes widened in surprise. “Why would you do that?”  
Mikey stood up, pointing at his chest with his thumb. “’Cause I’m a cat-loving dude, and I don’t want any cat to be sad. And it looks like this includes cat-mutants as well!” He gave Mittens a broad grin.

Later that night they were back on the rooftops. They had just sneaked out, but it appeared that although Mittens was really bad at fighting, she was a natural when it came to sneaking. Due to her inner – and outer – cat, Mikey presumed. And he knew his brothers would never understand what he intended to do, so it was best to not let them find out.  
They were standing on a rooftop, looking down to the apartment building where Mittens’ owner lived.  
Mittens’ ears twitched.  
“What is it?” Mikey asked, but then he could hear it, too.  
It was Mittens’ owner, calling her name.  
“He’s looking for me!” Mittens cried out. “He’s missing me!”  
And with that she was about to jump to the fire escape, but Mikey stopped her.  
“Mittens, I got an idea,” he said. “It maybe work, but I’m not sure. Wanna give it a try?”  
Mittens looked at him surprised, but then nodded.

“Mittens!” the young man called out into the night. “Mittens?”  
He sighed. It was unusual for his cat to be gone so long. He hoped this strange creature hadn’t grabbed her.  
“Sir,” a voice said from below, and when the young man looked down, he could see someone climbing up the fire escape.  
“I got your cat,” this someone said, but no matter how hard the young man tried he couldn’t quite spot who this was. Whoever it was, he preferred to stay in the shadows.  
“Well then,” he said as this man – the voice belonged to a young man, he was sure – finally had reached his level, but still stayed in the shadows, “where is she?”  
“She looks a bit different now, but you will see that it is her. Just look at her white markings and her collar, will you please?”  
The young man looked a bit, no, very surprised, but nodded in agreement. And the next thing he saw was another figure jumping down on the fire escape on his level, but this figure stepped into the light.  
The young man’s eyes widened in fear and he gasped. That was this mutant that had shown up here earlier tonight.  
But this time he did as this other guy had told him. He eyed the mutant, looked at its fur color, the markings and finally at the collar, and yes, this was definitely the color his Mittens had been wearing.  
“Mittens?” he asked disbelievingly. “Is that really you?”  
The cat-mutant nodded, tears dwelling in her eyes.  
“What happened?” her owner asked.  
“I got showered with some strange ooze, and then I looked like this.”  
“Oh, my poor cat!”  
Mittens looked at her owner, blinking a few times. And then it hit her! He had called her his cat! She was his cat.  
And without further hesitation she hugged him, rubbing her cheek against his and purring loudly.  
The young man was surprised, but hugged her back, stroking her head gently.  
When Mittens finally let go of him, he looked at her concerned.  
“What should I do with you now?” he asked.  
“I…I am your cat,” Mittens answered. “I have to stay with you.”  
Her owner frowned, and then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mittens, but that’s impossible. You are no cat, you are a mutant. You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous! Some government-dude or a mad scientist will show up to take you away. And I don’t want to know what they would do to you.”  
“I can take care of her,” Mikey said, now stepping into the light.  
“You…you are that green mutant!” the young man cried out.  
“I am. And being a mutant, I know how to help Mittens.”  
The young man looked from Mikey to Mittens, then back to Mikey. “I guess you’re right.”  
“But…but…,” Mittens stammered.  
Her owner paced his hands on her shoulders. “He is right, Mittens. Go with him.” He gently stroked her head once more. “Be a good cat, will you?”  
Mittens nodded and rubbed her head against his stroking hand, and when her owner took his hand away, Mikey grabbed her hand, drawing her away from the window.  
“I will miss you, Mittens,” the young man said.  
Mittens looked at him one more time, a sad meow escaping her mouth. And then she and Mikey climbed down the fire escape.

Moments later they were back in the sewers. Mittens was following Mikey, but she was slowing down and finally came to a halt. When Mikey realized that he stopped as well and turned around to look at her.  
“He sent me away,” Mittens said, tears running down her cheeks. “What do I do now?”  
“What you do now? I will tell you what you do now!” Mikey said. “First you cheer up, because there are so many exciting things about to happen. You will meet my friends, we will find you a nice place to live – not too far away from our lair, of course. I promised to take care of you. And then we have to make this the best time of your life.” He grinned encouragingly at the cat-mutant.  
“You in?” he asked and reached out his hand for her to shake it.  
Mittens looked at him for a few seconds, then her sad face turned into a smile, her eyes sparkled. She bent forward and rubbed her cheek on Mikey’s hand and started to purr.  
“I’d take that as a yes,” Mikey said with a smile.


	2. New Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mittens and Splinter don't get along, so Mikey has to find her a new home.

A loud cat-ish shriek echoed through the sewers’ tunnel and seconds later Mittens, the cat-mutant darted out of the lair on all fours. She stopped for a second, looking around in fear as if to make sure if she has been followed, and then she literally went up the wall.  
Just moments later Mikey ran out of the lair as well.  
“That was very good, Mittens,” he said encouragingly. “That was 30 seconds. Big improvement to yesterday when it was only 28 seconds. If you keep up this pace you can move in with us in March next year.” He grinned at Mittens who was still clinging to that wall and breathing heavily, her tail swinging from one side to the other.  
That moment his brothers joined Mikey in the tunnel.  
“Seriously, Mikey,” Leo stated, “you want give sensei a heart attack? That was the fifth time this week you brought Mittens here. When are you finally gonna learn that she and sensei don’t get along?”  
“But they can be in the same room now without freaking out!” Mikey countered.  
“Yeah, for about 15 seconds!” Leo said.  
“30 seconds,” his youngest brother corrected him. “And counting. Besides, sensei already stays calm. And Mittens will learn that too.”  
“He stays calm on the outside, yes,” Donnie stated. “But I’m pretty sure being in the same room with a giant cat will always give him the creeps.”  
Mikey lowered his eyes.   
“Yeah, so stop bringing that flea bag here!” Raph said and pointed at Mittens with his thumb. Mittens hissed at his insult.  
“Mittens has no fleas!” Mikey gave back. “And she needs a new home. I promised to take care of her and she can’t sleep in the garage forever. That was only meant to be temporary. She doesn’t like it there. She’s intimidated by the Shellraiser.”  
Leo placed a hand on Mikey’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mikey, but Mittens can’t stay with us.”  
“But…”  
“I’m afraid you have to find her a new place to stay.”  
  
“Why can’t I stay with you?” Mittens asked as Mikey and she were wandering through the sewers.  
“For the hundredth time, Mittens, because you and my sensei will never get along.” He sighed. “I am so sorry.”  
“But I could sneak in at night and sneak out in the morning before your sensei gets up. I’m a cat. I’m good at sneaking.”  
“And my sensei is a ninja master,” Mikey replied. “He’s good at finding out.”  
Mittens lowered her eyes. “But you’ve already brought me to the lair and it was no problem for your sensei. You know, back at the night you found me.”  
Mikey took a deep breath. “Sensei wasn’t at home that night. He went topside with April for some training exercise.”   
“I see.” Mittens lowered her eyes even further.  
Mikey looked at the cat-mutant with a concerned look in his eyes, but then in an attempt to cheer her up he smiled at her.  
“So, you want to stay nearby?” he asked gleefully. “That tunnel down there seems promising. Maybe we can find some abandoned subway-station or so.”  
Mittens slackened her pace. When Mikey realized that he stopped. The cat-mutant stopped as well.  
“Mittens, what’s wrong?”  
“I…I…” Mittens fumbled for words, but failed, and so a feeble meow was all that escaped her mouth.   
Mikey watched shocked as she teared up.   
“Oh, Mittens!” he cried out, ran over to her and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly. Mittens hugged him back, the tears now running down her face, but all she could pronounce was another meow.  
“It’s okay, Mittens, it’s okay,” Mikey said as he gently patted her back. “Let it out. We can talk later.”  
Mittens sniveled loudly, even more tears were running down her cheeks now. She clung to Mikey now, and all Mikey could hear from her for the next few minutes where sobs and silent meows. Then finally, he could feel her grip on him loosen a bit, and after a few more moments she let go of him, taking a step back. Mikey let go of her as well, looking at Mittens who, again, had lowered her eyes.  
“Better?” he asked.  
Mittens nodded silently.  
“Okay, then tell what’s wrong.”  
The moment he said that Mittens was about to tear up again, but she managed to fight back the tears.   
“I…hate the sewers,” she finally managed to say. “It is so dark down here, there’s no sunlight, no fresh air, and the smell is an insult for my sensitive nose. But you live here, and I want to stay close to you. You’re my only friend. I don’t want to leave you. But staying close to you means I have to live in the sewers. I would bear it if I could live with you but that’s impossible. And now I don’t know what to do.”  
Mikey blinked a few times after this monologue. “Ooooookay,” he drawled, still taking in what she had just said. Then he thought about it with a frown while tapping his lip with his finger.  
But after a few moments he smiled again.   
“Easy!” he said. “All we have to do is find a nice place for you topside where you have sunlight and fresh air.”  
“But such a place isn’t nearby your lair,” Mittens pointed out. “We won’t see each other then!”   
Mikey could hear the panic in her voice in that last sentence.  
“Of course we will see each other, Mittens!” he assured her. “I will visit you after our evening patrols.”  
“Yeah, you will do that for the first weeks, then less and then no more.” Mittens said in a sad voice. “I know how it is. It was the same when my owner’s best friend moved to another city. They promised to meet each other every weekend. It worked for one month, then they only met once a month, then a few times a year, and now they don’t see each other any longer.”  
“In case you didn’t notice I’m not your owner’s best friend,” Mikey said as he placed a hand on Mittens’ shoulder. “I am Michelangelo, and I can be your best friend if you let me.”  
The cat-mutant looked at him for a second, then nodded.   
“Okay, now let’s find you a new home,” Mikey said with a big smile.   
  
Later that night, the two of them went topside and now were looking for a hideway for Mittens, but that was easier said than done. Mikey had thought of an abandoned building, but all the buildings they could find were about to collapse, and Mittens understandably refused to live in a building that could bury her any second.  
Mittens was frustrated about this whole situation and had put on an angry face. When Mikey noticed that he – despite being just as frustrated – decided to cheer her up. So he smiled at her.  
“You know what, Mittens?” he said. “I think it’s time for a break. Follow me!”  
And with that he jumped to the next rooftop. Mittens frowned at that, but followed him nonetheless.   
  
Fifteen minutes later they stopped on a rooftop nearby Murakami’s. Mikey peeked down, and when he realized that Mr. Murakami was alone, he smiled.  
“Well, you can’t find a new home on an empty stomach, right?” he said to Mittens. “And that’s why I’ll treat you to dinner tonight.”  
What he didn’t say was that he and his brothers never had to pay at Murakami’s. After helping him when he had had trouble with the Purple Dragons some time ago, Mr. Murakami insisted on making them their meals free of charge. But Mittens didn’t need to know that. Plus, Mikey really liked the idea of being some sort of a gentleman who invited his female friend to dinner.  
“Dinner?” Mittens asked.  
“Yes, at Murakami’s,” Mikey confirmed and pointed to the restaurant.  
“We can’t go in there!” Mittens burst out. “There are humans!”  
“No, Murakami-san is alone, and he is our friend. He doesn’t mind if you are a mutant or not. Come!”  
And with that he climbed down the fire escape.  
Mittens hesitated for a moment, but then followed him.  
  
“Good evening, Murakami-san!” Mikey greeted his human friend cheerfully as he entered the restaurant. He flipped the sign at the door over so that it said “Closed” – just in case.  
“Mikey-kun!” Murakami answered happily. “Pizza gyooza as usual?”  
“Of course,” Mikey answered. “Two portions, please. I brought a friend.”  
Mittens peeked inside before she entered the restaurant hesitantly. She looked around the room once more before she closed the door and had a seat next to Mikey at the bar.  
“Hello, Mikey’s friend,” Murakami said. “I am Murakami.”  
“Mittens,” the cat-mutant replied.  
“Oh, a girl. “Murakami grinned. “Is that a date, Mikey?”  
Mikey uttered a brief laugh. “No, Murakami-san, no date. We’re just friends.”   
Murakami nodded, but Mikey noticed the small smile on the man’s face. Then he turned around to prepare the meals for his guests.  
Mittens looked at Mikey with a questioning look on her face. “He didn’t freak out,” she whispered.  
“No, that’s because he is blind,” Mikey whispered back. “I told you he doesn’t mind if you are a mutant or not.”   
“So, your friend is a mutant?” Murakami asked as he brought them their meals.   
“How do you…?” Mikey burst out.  
Murakami grinned. “What I lack in seeing I compensate in hearing.”  
“Cat-mutant,” Mittens said.   
“Now I know four turtle- and one cat-mutant,” Murakami said. “I’d say I have a very interesting circle of friends.”  
Mittens smiled at him, but when she looked at her meal the smile suddenly disappeared. She looked over to Mikey who was already eating his portion of pizza gyooza. She watched closely how he held his chopsticks and imitated him. Very slowly she tried to pick up one piece of pizza gyooza with her chopsticks, but failed. She tried it one more time, but somehow she couldn’t manage to get the food in her mouth.  
“No, Mittens, like that,” Mikey explained when he realized that, took her hand and showed how she had to hold the chopsticks, and after he did that, Mittens finally managed to get one piece of pizza gyooza in her mouth.  
“Delicious!” she burst out and scoffed the rest of her meal in no time.  
“So, Mikey-kun,” Murakami asked. “How are you doing? Are your brothers alright?”  
“I am fine, Murakami-san, my brothers are fine, too,” Mikey answered.  
“How come they didn’t accompany you tonight? You never come here alone, and you said that this is no date, so I was wondering what is going on. You didn’t have a fight, did you?”  
“No,” Mikey answered and sighed.  
“Then what’s wrong?”  
Mikey took a deep breath and then he told Murakami the whole story of how he came to know Mittens and that they had to find a new place to live for her.  
“I see,” Murakami said when Mikey had finished his story. “Complicated.”  
“Yeah,” Mikey sighed. “But we will find a solution.”  
“Of course you will!” Murakami smiled at Mikey encouragingly.  
Mikey smiled back. He knew Murakami couldn’t see but he bet the old man could somehow sense it.  
“Come, Mittens,” the youngest turtle brother said to his friend. “We still have to find you a new home.”  
And with that he stood up.   
“Bye, Murakami-san,” he said to the old man, went over to the door, flipped the sign back to open and left.   
Mittens followed him, but stopped in the doorway and waved at Murakami. But then she remembered that he couldn’t see it.  
“I…I’m…waving at you,” she stuttered.  
Murakami chuckled and raised his hand to wave back. “And I’m waving back at you.”  
Mittens gave a small smile before she left the restaurant.  
  
Mikey and Mittens reached a dark side street. Mikey was still thinking about where they should continue their search, so he didn’t notice the three men that were following them.   
“Look, what have we here?” said one of them. He was the tallest brawniest of the three. “Isn’t that one of these meddling turtles?”  
“I told you the turtles come into this neighborhood often,” the second man, who was quite thin compared to the others, replied.  
The third man was the smallest of the three, but he seemed chunky. “The boss will be very pleased if we bring this turtle-boy to him. He and his brothers have messed with the Purple Dragons way too often!”  
“Purple Dragons, huh?” Mikey said as he turned around and drew his nunchucks. “Well, I can’t wait to mess with you guys once more.”  
The three men just laughed at his comment.  
Without letting the three out of his sight Mikey turned to Mittens.  
“Mittens, get away from here,” he said.  
“But…” the cat-mutant stammered.  
“You heard me, Mittens. Leave!”  
“Awwww, isn’t that cute? He tries to protect his flea bag of a girlfriend!”  
“She is not my girlfriend and no-one calls Mittens a flea bag!” Mikey burst out. “Well, okay, my brother does that but that doesn’t count: Take that back, you jerk!”  
“Look at this, he really likes her!” the brawniest of the three said. “I can imagine it’s quite nice to delouse her fur every night.”  
“Mittens, go!”  
Mikey’s voice was so angry Mittens didn’t dare to disobey and so she ran away. But she stopped after a few moments and looked back over her shoulder to check if Mikey was okay.  
The three Purple Dragons had all kissed the dust. Mikey was standing in front of the one who had called Mittens a flea bag.  
“I said you should take that back!” the mutant said.  
In that moment one of the other men drew a knife and got back on his feet. Mikey didn’t seem to notice.  
Mittens gasped. She had to do something! And the next thing she remembered was that she had jumped on the man’s back and dug her claws into his cheeks.  
She hissed and shrieked while doing so and that finally made Mikey turn around.  
“Mittens!” he cried out when he saw that the man slashed at Mittens with his knife. He then managed to grab one of Mittens’ paws and flung her to the ground. But then he was kicked in the back by Mikey and he slumped to his knees. Mikey ran over to Mittens who was still lying on the ground.   
“Get away from here!” he cried out to the men. “This is my last warning!”  
The three men looked at each other, then got up and ran away. This turtle wasn’t as easy a target as they had thought, so they decided to run away as fast as they could.  
When they were gone Mikey bent down to check on Mittens.  
“You okay, Mittens?”  
The cat-mutant gave a silent meow as she sat up. Mikey reached for her paw, but when he touched it Mittens pulled away with a hiss. It was then that Mikey saw the cut on her left forearm.  
“Come, Mittens,” he said in a calm voice. “Let’s get you back to the lair.”  
  
Later that night Donnie was taking care of Mittens’ wound. The cut wasn’t as deep as it had looked at the beginning so all he needed to do was disinfecting it and bandaging her arm but that was more difficult than he had thought. As most cats Mittens hated medical treatments, and so she fought with tooth and nail. Mikey had hugged her from behind to first calm her down and second hold her in place, Raph held her paws in a tight grip so Donnie could take of the cut, and Leo made sure she couldn’t get up from her seat.   
When Donnie was finally done, Leo and Raph let immediately go of Mittens, but Mikey didn’t let go.  
“See, Mittens?” he said in a calming voice. “That wasn’t so bad.”  
“Yeah? Tell that the scratches on my hands,” Raph mumbled.  
At that moment Splinter entered Donnie’s lab.  
“Could you please leave me and Mittens alone for a moment?” he asked.  
“Are you sure, sensei?” Leo asked.  
“Absolutely sure,” Splinter confirmed.  
Leo, Donnie and Raph looked for each other for a moment, but then left the lab.   
“Michelangelo,” Splinter said to his youngest son. “This applies to you as well.”  
Mikey looked from his sensei to Mittens, back to his sensei, and then to Mittens again.  
“Think you can handle this?” he asked his friend.  
Mittens just nodded. She was too exhausted to run away from this giant rat again which Splinter must have noticed.  
“Okay,” Mikey said, let go of Mittens and left the lab.  
Splinter waited till Mikey was outside and then turned to Mittens.  
“Mittens, I heard you had risked your own life to help Michelangelo,” he said. “And I want to thank you for that. And I want to let you know that you that as a sign of my thankfulness you can stay here as long as you want to.”  
Mittens blinked a few times.   
“I…I don’t know what to say,” she stammered. “Thank you!” She thought of what he had said. “But you know I can’t live down here with you forever.”  
“I do. But you can stay here as long as you want to. You are my guest, Mittens,” Splinter confirmed. “But please at least try not to kill me, okay?”  
Mittens gave him a small smile. “Okay.”  
  
A few days had passed. Mittens had spent nearly the whole time in Mikey’s room or in the living room when Splinter was in the dojo. She was very happy that she didn’t have to sleep in the garage any longer, and she knew now that she was welcome here, but she didn’t want to push her luck and be in the same room with Splinter too long. Her instincts might get the best of her and she could attack him.   
She was in Mikey’s room listening to the radio when Mikey entered the room that evening.  
“Come, Mittens!” he said cheerfully. “I need to show you something!”   
  
It was already dark, when they reached the rooftop of the building where Murakami’s restaurant was.   
“Pizza gyooza again?” Mittens asked happily.   
“Not quite,” Mikey answered. He guided Mittens to a tool shed on that rooftop. He opened the door and led Mittens inside.  
“Murakami called me two days ago. This tool shed always was part of the restaurant’s property, but he doesn’t really need it,” Mikey said. “So he asked me if maybe we can make this your new home.” And with these words he turned on the lights.  
Mittens gasped. There was a small sofa in the tool shed, a hammock she could use as a bed, a fluffy carpet, a radio and even a small TV-set.   
“My brothers and I made it up for you,” Mikey explained. “We even built a skylight. I know how much you like the sun, but it is difficult for us mutants to go out at daytime. But now you can at least open the skylight when the sun is shining. Do you like it?”  
“It is gorgeous!” Mittens called out. And then a very drawn out meow escaped her lips.   
Mikey chuckled when he heard that.  
“And I have this for you,” he said and handed Mittens a T-phone. “If you want some company, just give me a call. And if you feel so alone that you can’t wait the thirty seconds it will take me to get here, you can go and see Murakami-san in the meantime. He said he really likes you and you can always spend time with him, even come to the restaurant when there are no guests there. So, what do you say?”  
But Mittens didn’t say anything. She just hugged Mikey tightly, and before Mikey knew what was going on, Mittens started to rub her cheeks against his and purred loudly. The young turtle blushed. This felt so…strange. But after a while he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Mittens, hugging her back just as tightly. And then he started to return her caresses, rubbing his cheeks against hers.   
He knew this was no kiss. But it felt just as intimate.


	3. Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Mikey, Donnie and April teach Mittens a few things she needs to know to make her way in a human’s world, someone else starts to get interested in the cat-mutant.

A week had passed since Mittens had moved into her new home. Mikey had kept his promise and visited her every night after their patrol.  
But somehow, he was still thinking about that night he had shown her her new home and how she had hugged him and rubbed her cheeks against his, how he had been surprised first, but then had closed his eyes and returned her caresses. Her purring was still lingering in his ears. Shell, he had been so dreamy when he had come home that night, his brothers had started teasing him about it, telling him that he was more zoned out than usual. It took him some time to realize they were actually teasing him, so they hadn’t been so wrong after all.  
He kept asking himself if that cheek-rubbing-thing might count as a kiss. Well, he knew he saw it as a kiss, but he wasn’t so sure what it meant to Mittens. Maybe for her it was just something she did to people she liked. He had seen her “kissing” her owner like that. So maybe for her it was no big deal.  
And when his thoughts reached that point he always sighed and then looked for some distraction. He went all Dr. Prankenstein on Raph twice (which ended in Raph chasing him through the lair as usual), and even helped Donnie in the lab just to have something to do.  
But when he was with Mittens these thoughts somehow disappeared. Obviously, he had more important things to do than thinking negative thoughts when he was with her – like talking to her, teaching her all the things she needed to know to make her way around as a mutant – like where to go without running into humans, how to get there without being seen (although when it came to that Mittens was a natural; it might had something to do with her being a cat) and so on.  
And “teaching” was quite the cue when it came to Mittens these days. They had found out that Mittens couldn’t read nor write nor calculate, but now that she had to survive as a cat-mutant that was more human than cat in a world full of humans, those things were essential to her. So Mikey had asked Donnie and April for help. He had thought that Donnie as the brainiac of the team would make a great teacher, and April was very intelligent too. Plus, he had thought that maybe it would suit Mittens to have a female friend as well. Donnie and April had agreed, so now April was tutoring the cat-mutant in reading and writing after school, and Donnie was giving her math lessons every other day.  
Mikey had been afraid that maybe Mittens could be too stubborn and proud to allow someone teaching her something, but on the contrary, Mittens was eager to learn as much as she could. She really was enjoying her lessons, and Donnie and April were smart enough to rely on positive reinforcement when it came to giving a cat-mutant lessons.  
So when Mikey landed on the roof-top that night he could hear muffled voices from inside the toolshed which now was Mittens’ home. He paused for a few moments and eavesdropped.  
He could hear April say, “Very good, Mittens. One more line of a’s and we are done for today.”  
And then the redhead added in a louder voice, “So that Mikey can come in!”  
Mikey’s eyes gaped in surprise, but then he entered the toolshed with a sheepish grin on his face.  
“You got me!” he said to April.  
The teenage girl answered with a smirk.  
“Geez, your kunoichi skills really are getting better, April,” Mikey added as he knelt down next to Mittens on the ground.  
“Thanks,” April answered.  
Mittens had no desk in her home – the toolshed was too small for that. That was why they had brought her an old coffee table and some cushions so that she could do her homework while sitting on the floor. They had even added a small shelf to the toolshed’s furniture.  
“Look!” Mittens cried out to Mikey and held up a piece of paper on which she had written down all the letters of the alphabet in her spidery handwriting.  
“Very good, Mittens!” Mikey said with a warm smile.  
“She is a fast learner,” April noted. “And she is superfast with reading. She can already read youngest readers’ books.“  
When Mittens heard that she looked at Mikey with a proud grin.  
Mikey patted her head for a moment. “I told you she’s a clever cat.”  
And with that Mittens put the paper back on the coffee table, took her pencil and finished her last line of a’s for that day. Mikey watched her, and when she was done, Mittens handed the piece of paper to April.  
“Nicely done,” April said. “Your handwriting is definitely getting better.”  
“Thank you, April!” Mittens grinned from ear to ear.  
“Okay, that’s it for today,” April said and got up. “What are your plans now?”  
“I’m gonna show Mittens how to get to the park without being seen,” Mikey explained.”  
“Yes!” Mittens cheered. “I’m about to see trees! I love trees! But in my owner’s neighborhood there were only a few, and they weren’t climbing material at all.”  
April smiled. “I see. Well then, see you tomorrow, Mittens! Bye, Mikey!”  
Mikey and Mittens waved at her, and when April had left the toolshed, Mikey turned to Mittens. The cat-mutant was looking at him expectantly.  
“So you like my idea?”  
A happy sounding “Meow!” was the answer.

Later that night Mittens was racing through the park, climbing up one tree, climbing down again, running to the next tree, climbing it half and jumping down, all in some sort of super-cat-speed, shrieking meows all the time.  
“Mittens!” Mikey called her. “Keep it down a bit!”  
“But I’m so excited!” Mittens cried out without stopping. “Trees, so many trees!”  
“Alrighty then,” Mikey answered. “If I can’t stop you, I have to join you! BOOYAKASHA!” And with that he climbed up the next tree.

Little did they know that they were being observed. Some shadowy figure was standing in the park, far away enough to not being seen by Mikey or Mittens, but close enough to use the zoom of his camera to take some pictures of Mittens.  
“So those Purple Dragons were right,” he said. “There really is a cat-mutant running around in this neighborhood.” He smiled for a second. “The boss is so gonna love this.”

When Mikey came home later that night his brothers were gathered in the living room.  
“Oh, look, who’s back!” Raph called out with a grin when he spotted Mikey. “Enjoyed hanging out with your girlfriend?”  
“No,” Mikey answered. “I…I mean Mittens is not my girlfriend!”  
“You’re right. ‘Catfriend’ might be the right name,” Raph said laughingly as he wrapped an arm around Mikey’s shoulders and pulled him closer. “Did she kiss you?”  
“No.”  
“Did you try to kiss her?”  
“No.”  
“Why not? I guess she is quite hot for a flea bag.”  
Mikey looked at Raph, his eyes burning with anger as he violently released himself from Raph’s grip. He just looked at Raph for one more moment in silence, before he turned around and left for his room.  
Raph had never seen his little brother like that before and thus was a bit dumbfounded. He looked at Donnie and Leo.  
“Think I overdid it?” he asked.  
Donnie and Leo exchanged a glance before turning to Raph again and nodded in unison.  
“Oops…;” the red-clad turtle mumbled.

“As you can see now, mistress,” the young man said, “the rumors were right. There really is a cat-mutant running around in New York City. And I think she is perfect for your plans.”  
“No, not perfect,” a female voice answered. “But she has potential.”  
And with that she handed the pictures of Mittens she had been looking at back to the young man. “Bring her to me.”

The next morning there was a silent knock on the door of Mikey’s room, but whoever had knocked didn’t wait for a response, but opened the door immediately and one second later, Raph popped his head in.  
“You sick?” he asked. “It’s already 8 o’clock.”  
“Leave me alone, Raph!” Mikey said in a muffled voice. The youngest turtle was lying on his bed and had pressed his face on his pillow.  
“Oh, come on, Mikey!” Raph said and entered the room. “You aren’t still mad at me, are you?”  
“Go away!”  
Raph went over to Mikey’s bed and sat down on the edge of the bed.  
“I’m sorry, bro,” he said silently. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just teasing you. You know, like I always do.”  
Mikey took a deep breath and sat up. He hadn’t even put on his mask yet. “Doesn’t mean it hurts less.”  
“Sorry.” Raph placed a hand on Mikey’s shoulder. “I struck a nerve, huh?”  
Mikey lowered his eyes. “Maybe.”  
“You know I’m not really good at handing out advice – I guess none of us is when it comes to romance – but if you wanna talk, I’m here to listen.”  
Mikey looked at his older brother for a moment. “Thanks, Raph.”  
“Anytime.” Raph squeezed Mikey’s shoulder a little before he reached for Mikey’s mask which was placed on the skateboard near his bed as usual.  
“So, do you think you could make breakfast or do you want the others and me turn the kitchen into a battlefield again?” he asked with a smirk as he handed Mikey his mask.  
“Heck, no!” Mikey burst out, grabbed his mask and put it on while darting out of his room.  
Raph watched him with a smile before he followed him at a leisurely pace.

When Mikey arrived at Mittens’ that night, he found a note pinned to the door of the toolshed.  
“Meet me at the park – Mittens” written in the cat-mutant’s spidery, warped handwriting, he read. With a smile he took the note. Then he made his way to the park.

Mittens was waiting for her friend at the park, standing under a tree. She was so proud of herself! She had written the first note of her life! A whole sentence! Not just letters, but a whole sentence! Okay, April had pre-written it for her and she had written it off, but still! That was so amazing! She grinned when she imagined Mikey’s face when he found the note. He must have been so surprised. And proud, of course.  
Her ears twitched when she heard leaves rustling and she turned to the direction the noise came from.  
“Mikey?” she asked joyfully. “Is that you?”  
But whoever stepped out into the moonlight made Mittens’ eyes widen in horror. The cat-mutant hissed and then took flight.

Some time had passed as Mittens pressed her back against a tree. She was so thankful for her black fur right now, though her white markings could still give her away. She could hear her haunter’s footsteps, damped by the soft grass, the rustling of leaves, the breaking of twigs as they were searching the brushwood for her. The beams of their flashlights were dancing through the darkness like some really big fireflies.  
Mittens held her tongue not to scream out in fear. She was so scared! What did they want? Kill her? Capture her? She had seen the nets some of them were carrying, but others had some guns with them. So this could either mean they wanted to capture her alive or kill her. But she sure didn’t want to wait to find out.  
She took a deep breath before she ran over to the next tree for cover.

When Mikey arrived at the park he stood rooted to the ground for a second before he quickly climbed a tree to hide. What were all these people doing here? There were like twenty of them there, and they seemed to be looking for something. Or someone. Mikey spotted some nets and guns.  
“Mittens…,” he mumbled worriedly before he took out his T-phone.

Moments later Donnie’s T-phone rang. The purple-clad turtle picked up.  
“Hey, Mikey! What’s going on?” he asked.  
“Mittens is in trouble,” Mikey whispered.  
“Could speak up a little, Mikey?” Donnie asked. “I can’t hear you.”  
“No, I can’t,” Mikey whispered back. “There are so many people here at the park, and I think they are looking for Mittens. Donnie, you have to locate her T-phone! I have to find her!”  
“Let me repeat that,” Donnie said. “You want me to locate Mittens’ T-phone because there are some people looking for her at the park and you have to get her out of there, right?”  
“Right,” Mikey confirmed. “Hurry!”  
And with that he hang up.  
Donnie started typing something on his T-phone while running out of his lab.  
“Guys!” he called his brothers. “I think Mikey and Mittens are in trouble!”

Mikey jumped to the next tree, holding his T-phone in one hand. He looked at it again.  
“Okay, this red, blinking dot is supposed to be Mittens, I guess,” he whispered to himself. “And this is...” – he looked around – “where exactly?”  
He scanned his surroundings hectically. The panic he might be late to save Mittens made his heart pound.  
Then a movement caught his eye. A shadowy figure darted out of the brushwood, a shadowy figure on all fours, with a tail and cat’s eyes.  
“Mittens!” Mikey cried out. He didn’t think about being quiet any longer. Not when he saw that five men were following Mittens, and especially not, when one of them drew his gun.  
“Thanks, red dot!” Mikey mumbled. “But I don’t need you any longer!” And with that he jumped.

Mittens was running for her life. She knew they had encircled her, so all she could think of was seeking refuge in attack. She had jumped out of her hiding place, overran one of her haunters and then simply ran as fast as she could.  
She didn’t think of where she was headed, all she could think of was running. The next thing she knew was that she was out in the open. There were no trees on the grassland where she could hide. And the next moment she felt a burning sting in her right upper arm, but she kept running, until her sight got blurry and she hit the ground. She sat up and looked around her, but couldn’t see anything but a few shadowy figures, and their voices sounded muffled. She couldn’t understand a single word, only watch how more and more shadowy figures encircled her. Someone threw a net over her, but she felt too weak to shake it off. Suddenly she felt very, very dizzy. She shook her head hoping that this would make the dizziness somehow disappear, but on the contrary made it worse. The voices of her haunters were even more muffled now and sounded like some rustling of leaves or the murmur of the wind.  
But suddenly her ears twitched as she heard a sound she would always recognize.  
“BOOYAKASHA!”  
And then she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.  
Her claws dug into the earth as she forcefully tried to stay awake. All she could hear were these muffled noises and then someone pulled the net away, picked her up and ran.  
For a moment she thought of struggling or at least trying to do so, but something felt familiar about this someone. And when her sensitive nose could detect his smell, she knew for sure that it was Mikey. And knowing that made her feel safe. She knew they were in danger, she knew they could still be captured, but knowing that she was no longer alone, that she didn’t have to face this threat all by herself, made her relax. Everything was going to be alright, was the last thought that crossed her mind before the tranquilizer finally took effect and she drifted off to sleep.

Mikey was running as fast as he could, trying to leave behind their haunters. But given the fact that he was carrying an unconscious Mittens he sure could need a miracle right now. He had already left the park because it was too crowded with enemies there. He thought of going underground for a second, but he simply didn’t have the time to put Mittens down, lift the manhole cover, grab Mittens again and get underground. Their haunters were too close.  
So all that was left was the miracle.  
“One tiny miracle, please!” he begged.  
And the moment he said that he could hear the roar of an engine and brake squeal behind him. He quickly looked over his shoulder and sighed in relief when he realized the Shellraiser had entered the scene.  
“And here comes my miracle,” he said with a grin.  
“Get Mittens inside the Shellraiser!” Leo commanded as he and Raph jumped out of the Shellraiser and lunged at their haunters. “We’ll hold them off!”  
Mikey nodded and quickly ran over to the vehicle. Donnie was waiting for him at the backdoor and helped him getting Mittens inside. When they were done Donnie called over to his brothers, “Time to go!”  
The two of them nodded and wanted to get back, and while Leo reached the Shellraiser in no time, a brawny guy grabbed Raph from behind. The red-clad turtle kicked the guy in the shin and once his opponent loosened his grip Raph reached back, grabbed him by the collar and flicked him over his shoulder. The moment he did that he could hear something clang, but didn’t care what it was. The guy hit the ground hard – enough time for Raph to make his way back to the Shellraiser.  
It was only when he had taken up his station again that he realized he was holding something in his hand. He must have grabbed it when he had flicked the guy over his shoulder, some small golden, gemmed plate. He shoved it under his belt. Maybe they would need it later.  
Back in the driver’s seat Leo stepped on it. He took some sharp turns until he was sure they had left their haunters behind which wasn’t so hard if you kept in mind they were on foot, but you could never be too sure.

Back at the lair they brought Mittens into Donnie’s lab where they placed her on the examination table. The cat-mutant was still asleep.  
“Why won’t she wake up?” Mikey asked, a concerned look on his face.  
“I will figure it out, no worries, Mikey,” Donnie answered as he took out the dart from Mittens’ upper arm and did some tests.  
“Just some tranquilizer,” Donnie explained once he was done. “It will give her a headache when she wakes up, but no permanent damage.”  
Mikey let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Donnie.”  
“You’re welcome.”  
Mikey pushed a chair over to the examination table and sat down, looking at his friend.  
“Why would anyone be after Mittens?” Leo asked.  
Mikey shrugged without taking his eyes away from Mittens. “Dunno.”  
“Maybe this can help,” Raph said and put out the golden plate. He showed it to his brothers. “I accidentally grabbed that from one of our opponents during the fight. It’s not much, but it’s all we have.”  
Donnie took the plate and had a closer look at it. “The workmanship is unusual. I’ll do some research. Maybe I can find something that will help us. But it could take a while.”  
“What about Mittens?” Mikey asked.  
“What about her?” Leo asked back. “We wait till she wakes up and then you bring her home.”  
Mikey looked at him and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. There are some crazy dudes after her, and Mittens is pretty much defenseless.  
“Last time I checked she knew a lot about scratching,” Raph answered, referring to the time when they had to hold her down so that Donnie could treat her wound.  
“We can’t send her back home when someone is trying to capture her!”  
“But she can’t stay with us, Mikey!” Leo answered. “We’re done with that!”  
“But someone is trying to capture her!”  
“What about we teach her how to defend herself?” Donnie suggested. “I’m already teaching her mathematics, so I won’t do another teaching job, and given the fact you two are way better fighters than Mikey and I, how about we leave this job to the A-team?” He grinned at the last part.  
“No way I’m gonna show this flea bag how to fight!” Raph gave back.  
“Hold it, Raph,” Leo said. “Donnie has a point. Try to see it this way: If Mittens learns how to defend herself, we won’t have to rescue her all the time.”  
Raph grumbled something no-one could understand. “Fine!” he finally said. “But if this flea bag isn’t doing what I tell her to do, she is gonna regret it.” And with that he stomped out of the lab.  
“Think we should tell him that you can’t teach cats anything by force?” Donnie asked.  
“Nah,” Leo waved aside, “it’s going to be way more fun this way.”  
The three brothers shared a smile.

“YOU FAILED?!” a female voice cried out in anger and a slender shadow fell upon the man who was kneeling in front of her.  
“I’m sorry, mistress!” he said in a shaking voice. “But it wasn’t the cat alone. There were those turtles. They protected her!”  
“I am not interested in your turtles! I want the cat!”  
“We will bring her to you, mistress! I promise!”  
“Of course you will.” The voice now was calm, but had a threatening undertone to it. “You know what will happen to you if you don’t. My pets are always hungry.”  
The man looked to the side where three lions – a male and two female ones to his sides – were chained to the wall. They were lying on the ground, but had set eyes on the man. The male yawned and showed his white sharp teeth.  
The man gulped and looked back to his mistress who now grinned at him devilishly.

The next night after their patrol Mikey showed up at Mittens’ like he always did. The cat-mutant was lying on the couch lazily, but when Mikey entered she jumped to her feet ran over to him and gave him a quick hug. “Mikey!”  
“Hey there, Mittens, how are you?” the youngest turtle-brother asked.  
“I’m fine. My head still hurts a little, but that’s okay,” she answered as she guided Mikey over to the couch.  
“I’m glad they didn’t get you.”  
“Me too,” Mittens answered. “Thanks for saving me again.”  
“You’re welcome again.”  
The two shared a look, silent for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes before Mikey cleared his throat.  
“I…I brought you something,” Mikey stammered and handed Mittens a children’s book.  
Mittens gasped and looked at the book in her paws. “Thank you, Mikey!”  
“Think we can read it together?”  
Mittens nodded eagerly and sat down on the couch. She put her feet on the coffee table and pulled up her knees so that she could place the book on her thighs and opened it. Mikey moved a little closer, his cheek nearly touching her head, and put his arm around her shoulders.  
“Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who lived on a farm. She was friends with a lazy dog, a sleepy cat, and a noisy yellow duck,” Mittens started reading.  
A little smile appeared on Mikey’s face. Okay, he still didn’t know if Mittens felt anything more than friendship for him, and yes, he still had no idea who was after her, but at this moment as he had her close to him he couldn’t care less. This moment was precious. At this moment his life was simply perfect.


	4. Fighting Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raph has to learn the hard way that you can't teach a cat(-mutant) anything by force.

Raph stomped into the kitchen where Mikey and Leo were playing cards on the kitchen table. He marched over to the cupboard and took out the first aid kit, opened it and started putting antiseptic on the scratches on his hands.  
  
Mikey watched this with a concerned look in his eyes.  
  
“Did Mittens scratch you again?” he asked.  
  
“No, it was this other cat-mutant I’m teaching self-defense;” Raph answered in a calm voice, but then added angrily, “Of course it was Mittens!”  
  
“What was it this time?” Mikey asked.  
  
“The same as always. I tell her what to do, she doesn’t do it, I move closer and raise my voice just a teeny-tiny bit to get her doing what she is supposed to do, she stares at me and the next moment she hisses and slashes at me with her claws exposed. What kind of reaction is that anyway?”  
  
“I told you, Raph,” Leo said, “you mustn’t yell at her. I just encourage her and it works pretty fine.”  
  
“You encourage her even if she makes it completely wrong?!” Raph asked.  
  
“There is no such thing as completely wrong,” Leo stated. “Only things you can work with. I tell her how great she did and that it would work even better if she did it like this and so on. Works every time.”  
  
Raph snorted. “Not my way of training her.”  
  
“And that’s the reason why you have scratches all over your hands and I don’t,” Leo clarified.  
  
Raph’s answer was another snort.  
  
Mikey laid his cards aside and got up.  
  
“Where are you going?” Leo asked.  
  
“To check on Mittens,” Mikey answered.  
  
“The flea bag’s fine, Mikey,” Raph said angrily. “You don’t have to run to her and comfort her every time she and I have an argument.”  
  
“I don’t have to, but I want to,” Mikey answered and turned to leave the kitchen, but stopped. “And don’t call her ‘flea bag’. She hates that,” he added left the kitchen.  
  
“I call her ‘flea bag’ whenever I want!” Raph yelled after Mikey and crossed his arms over his chest, but completely forgot about the fresh scratches. So he slightly winced when he did so and unfolded his arms immediately.  
  
Leo looked at him with some sort of a mischievous grin.  
  
Raph just growled silently.

* * *

Mittens was sitting on the roof-edge of the building where her toolshed was, letting her legs dangle over the edge. Her heart was still hammering. She hated it so much when someone yelled at her. And getting yelled at by Raph was even worse. She still didn’t get why he lost his temper this time. She was sure she had been doing a good job, following his instructions, but he – as always – had seen things differently, and had kept correcting her and telling her a thousand things she had done wrong. And then she had reached the point where she hadn’t been interested in going on and hadn’t done anything. And this had made him explode again to which her usual reaction was to attack him, when his voice had gotten so loud it had hurt her ears. And that usually was the point when he left or she fled and the training session was over.  
  
She really preferred training with Leo. He was kind and nice and never yelled at her, but he had told her that it would be best if she kept training with Raph as well – two different approaches and so. Besides, Leo insisted that Raph was the best fighter they had on the team. Mittens had given in, but still wished she could skip her training sessions with Raph.  
  
His angry voice was still ringing in her ears, and she was still so anxious she started grooming herself, licking her paw and running it over her face. Sure, she didn’t have to do that. Her fur was neat and since she had mutated she took showers – part of her new more human life – but like every cat, grooming calmed her down. She didn’t even realize that she started purring – another procedure cats used to calm themselves down.  
  
So when Mikey arrived at the roof-top a bit later, he saw her sitting on the roof-edge. Mittens didn’t move, but he was pretty sure she must have heard him. When he approached he could hear her purring.  
  
“Oh, good, I thought you might be sad,” he said in a relieved voice.  
  
Mittens stopped grooming herself, but didn’t look at Mikey. “But I am sad,” she said silently.  
  
“What?” Mikey was by her side in no time and sat down next to her. “But you were purring.”  
  
“Sometimes cats purr to calm themselves down or make themselves feel better,” Mittens answered. She still didn’t look at Mikey.  
  
“Oh, Mittens.” Mikey frowned, a concerned look appearing on his face. “Was he that mean?”  
  
Mittens nodded silently.  
  
The next moment Mikey flung his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug.  
  
“I promise it will get better,” he said. “Raph needs some time to get used to new people. Okay, he will never be a superfriendly dude, but he will yell less at you once he got used to you. I promise!”  
  
Mittens just hugged him back.  
  
When Mikey could hear her purr again, he wondered if it was to calm her down or if it was because she felt comfortable, but he really hoped for the latter.  
  
When they finally let go of each other, Mikey looked at Mittens for a moment.  
  
“Better?” he asked.  
  
Mittens nodded.  
  
“Good,” the youngest turtle said. “Then let’s get inside.” He stood up and held out his hand to her.  
  
Mittens smiled as she took his hand and allowed him to help her up.  
  
“You aren’t supposed to be out in the open like that,” Mikey said when they walked over to Mittens’ toolshed. “There are people after you, remember?”  
  
“I’m a cat-mutant, covered in black fur with just a few white markings on a dark roof-top in the middle of the night, believe me, I am not that easily found,” Mittens answered with a grin.

* * *

One of said people who were after Mittens was having a really bad time right now. He was kneeling on the floor in front of his mistress, his whole body shaking.  
  
“I’m sorry, Mistress, but we can’t find her,” he said.  
  
“What do you mean, you can’t find her?!” his mistress answered in an angry voice. “She is a humanoid cat in a city full of humans! It shouldn’t take you that long to find her!”  
  
“It’s not that easy, Mistress!” the man tried to defend himself. “There are a lot of freaks running around in New York.”  
  
“Freaks?! Are you insulting me?!”  
  
“No, no, Mistress! I didn’t mean you!” The man gulped. “It’s just that last night one of my men reported he had found her, but it turned out it was only a teenage girl on her way to a cosplay-party. I am so sorry, Mistress! We are patrolling non-stop to find her.”  
  
“Good,” the woman answered. “But I am an impatient person. Find her soon or the position of leading my troops will be vacant again.” She smiled devilishly. “Due to certain circumstances.” She looked over to the place where her three lions used to be chained to the wall, but today there was a leopard there.  
  
The man gulped once more before he nodded and got up. The gems on the golden neck collar he was wearing were blinking in the light while he was doing so.

* * *

April cautiously entered Donnie’s lab. She knew he didn’t like any interruptions when he was at work, but after Leo had told her that Donnie hadn’t left his lab the whole day she had decided to check on him. And she knew too that he wouldn’t chase her away. At least that was what she hoped for.  
  
“Hey there, Donnie,” she said to the brainiac and walked up to the table where Donnie was sitting and tapping away on his laptop.  
  
“Hey, April,” Donnie answered. He lifted his head just for a second to greet her with a small smile before his eyes were pinned on the laptop-screen again.  
  
“What are you doing?” April asked as she had a look at the screen over Donnie’s shoulder.  
  
“I’m trying to find out what this is,” Donnie explained and pointed at the golden plate that was lying next to his laptop.  
  
April looked at the plate. “May I?” she asked.  
  
“Sure,” was Donnie’s answer without even looking up again.  
  
April took the plate in her hand, examined it closely.  
  
“You know, this reminds me of something,” she said and put the plate back on the table.  
  
“Yeah, me too,” Donnie answered. “But I don’t know where I have seen something like that before.”  
  
“You’re lucky I pay attention during my history classes,” April said with a smirk. It was the first time this day that Donnie turned his eyes away from the screen for longer than a second and looked at April suspiciously.  
  
The teenage girl just kept on smirking while rummaging around in her bag and finally bringing out her history book.  
  
She paged through it for a second until she had found the page she was looking for and then showed it to Donnie.  
  
“There,” she said while pointing on the picture of an ancient Egyptian statue. “It looks just like one of the plates on the neck collar of this statue here.”  
  
Donnie had a closer look. “You’re right!”  
  
“Of course,” April said with a proud smile on her face.  
  
“Thanks, April!” Donnie said. “This really narrows my search.”  
  
“You are welcome,” the redhead answered.  
  
Donnie was already tapping away on his laptop again when April got a sandwich out of her bag and placed it on the table.  
  
“And that’s for you,” she explained. “I know you always forget to eat when you are at work.”  
  
Donnie looked at the sandwich and then at April.  
  
“You are the best!” he said with a big grin.  
  
“I know,” April answered with another proud smile and then walked to the door. She paused for a second and patted Metalhead on the head when she passed the little robot.  
  
“I let you to your work now. Bye, Donnie!” she said when she had reached the door looking back at Donnie for a moment.  
  
The purple-clad turtle gave her a little smile. “Thanks, April!”  
  
“Anytime!” And with that April left the lab.

* * *

“No, for the hundredth time, flea bag, not like this!” Raph yelled at the cat-mutant, his brows knit in anger.  
  
They were up on a roof-top for a training session. Mittens had already drawn back a few steps at the angry tone in his voice. She was just standing there, staring at him.  
  
Raph twisted his mouth as he saw that. He knew pretty sure what this meant. If he wasn’t careful she would scratch him again when he gave her the chance. He clenched his fists, but when he did so the scratches from their last training session hurt again. He narrowed his eyes, staring angrily at Mittens. Her face seemed blank to him, but then he saw something he hadn’t realized before. Were there tears shimmering in her eyes, tears she tried to fight back? And he could tell she was doing a really good job in hiding her emotions if he hadn’t realized before. Was she really that afraid?  
  
He looked down on his hands, examining the scratches she had given him at their last training session, the older, already fading ones and the new, still hurting ones. Did she do that because she was afraid? When he raised his eyes again, the look on his face had changed. He looked calmer now. Mittens raised a brow at this sight.  
  
“Let’s try this again, Mittens,” Raph said and walked over to the cat-mutant. “As I said before, when someone grabs you from behind, you don’t struggle and try to get away, you jump backwards with all your strength to unbalance your opponent. Okay?”  
  
Mittens just nodded.  
  
“Good.” Raph walked behind Mittens and put his arms around her body in a tight grip.  
  
Mittens’ first impulse was to try to get away and struggle.  
  
Raph noticed, so he whispered “Backwards!” into her ear, and when he did that, Mittens tensed and jumped back. Her back didn’t hit his plastron very hard, but he thought it would be best to let go of her and stumble backwards a few steps, and thus encourage her a bit. When Mittens realized that, she looked at him over her shoulder, blinking a few times.  
  
“See?” Raph said. “That’s how it’s done!” He looked at Mittens with a grin. “Wanna try it again?”  
  
Mittens nodded eagerly, a happy “Meow!” escaping her mouth.  
  
When Raph grabbed her from behind again, he couldn’t help but give a little smile.

* * *

The young man had just left the mysterious woman with such a huge interest in Mittens when he got a call. One of his men assured that he had spotted the cat-mutant on a rooftop with one of these turtle-mutants.  
  
“They’d better not be on their way to a costume party,” he sighed after he had hung up, and with that he called his men together to check on this sighting.

* * *

After another hour of training – which went surprisingly well tonight after Raph had decided to at least try this whole encouraging-thing – the ninja turtle thought it was enough training for one night.  
  
“Okay, it’s getting late. Let’s call it a night,” he said.  
  
Mittens looked at him and blinked a few times. Training with Raph today had been so much different from their usual training session, time had simply flown. It really had been fun tonight and she was still cheerful and wanted to try all she had learned tonight all over again.  
  
“Really?” she asked, the disappointment in her voice more than obvious, but then she yawned. “Okay, maybe you’re right.”  
  
“Yeah, maybe,” Raph answered. “I’ll see you home.”  
  
And with that he walked over to the roof-edge, but stopped rooted to the ground. Mittens who had been right behind him bumped into him.  
  
“What the…” she asked, but when she saw Raph’s serious face she didn’t finish the sentence.  
  
“Stay close to me,” Raph said as he drew his sais. “And when I tell you to run, just run.”  
  
Mittens nodded, a silent, insecure “Meow!” escaping her mouth.  
  
And then they were there. Twenty men seemed to appear out of nowhere and surrounded them quickly. And again they were carrying nets and guns.  
  
Raph eyed their opponents while they were standing there, waiting for their command to attack them. It was a moonlit night, so he could see the golden neck collars they all were wearing shimmering in the moonlight.  
  
“They sure have taste when it comes to extravagant jewelry,” he mumbled.  
  
Then one of them raised his hand, and the next moment they were attacking.  
  
Raph fought his way to the roof-edge, Mittens following him and staying close to him as good as she could, but most of the time Raph had to drag her along while dodging or blocking attacks.  
  
Mittens’ heart pounded in her chest. She wanted to run, but couldn’t. Whenever she made an attempt to simply just run for it there was either one of their opponents blocking her way or Raph pulling her back so that she wasn’t hit by a dart or covered by a net. They finally managed to make their way to the roof-edge. Mittens stood there, her eyes pinned to the next roof-edge as she was estimating the distance, but then she heard their opponents coming closer and she looked back over her shoulder, her heart started hammering even more. She quickly looked back to the other roof-edge, then back to their opponents, than to Raph who was fighting back two of their attackers. She felt cornered and had no idea what to do. The next roof-edge suddenly seemed so far away that she could never reach it with a jump. She gasped for air. What should she do?  
Raph saw the hounded look on her face from the corner of his eye as he pushed another attacker away so that the man stumbled into two other opponents, and ran over to Mittens. He then put his sais away, grabbed the cat-mutant, flung her over his shoulder and jumped.  
  
Mittens shrieked anxiously. Had he totally lost it? The next roof was too far away! They were never going to make it!  
  
It was only when she heard the rattle of metal that she realized he was climbing down the fire escape? For a moment she got angry with herself. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Why did she lose any trace of rational thinking when she felt cornered? Animals reacted like that, but she was no animal any longer. She was a mutant now! She had to be able to think rationally!  
  
When they reached the ground Raph put her down again. Mittens lowered her eyes, and mumbled something that was meant to be a “Thank you!”, but turned out as some sort of a “Thaaaa…meow!”  
But the next moment she perked her ears and Raph drew his sais again, as they heard nearing footsteps.  
  
“They’ve been expecting us!” he growled.  
  
He looked at their opponents, and now they were seriously cornered in this side street. It was a dead end, their only way out blocked by enemies and the rest of them waiting on the roof-top.  
Mittens’ heart started hammering in her chest again. Her breath quickened and she again got that hounded look on her face.  
  
Raph measured their chances to get out of this without needing help, when he saw a movement from the corner of his eye. The next moment he jumped in front of Mittens and the dart that had been launched on her bounced from his carapace.  
  
“Call the others!” he commanded. “Tell them where we are and that we need help!”  
  
Mittens nodded and fumbled for her T-phone that she wore on her belt.  
  
She dialed Mikey’s number while meowing silently and then held the phone to her ear.  
  
When Mikey picked up, she burst out: “It’s…meeeeoooow…me…Mittens! Need help! Side street, north, training roof, Raph! Hurry!”  
  
“Not bad!” Raph said with a smirk while he kicked one of their opponents in the stomach. “Next time whole sentences, okay?”  
  
Mittens just hissed.

* * *

Mikey stood there looking at his T-phone. What had that been? He had heard Mittens say something about help, a side street and north and a training roof and Raph. He thought about it for a few moments frowningly, and you could literally see how his brain worked to put this information together – you could even add the jeopardy theme-music if you want to –, but then his eyes widened in shock.  
  
“Guys!” he called out for his brothers. “Mittens and Raph are in trouble. They’re in a side street north from the rooftop she and Raph use for their training sessions. Hurry up!”

* * *

Mikey was making his way over the rooftops at such a speed, Leo and Donnie had problems to keep up. When they reached the rooftop where Mittens and Raph usually did their training, there were two men standing there on the roof-edge, but with their backs to the three approaching turtles. Mikey narrowed his eyes, sped up even more, attacked and knocked them out in no time.  
  
Leo blinked a few times when he saw that. When had been the last time Mikey had entered a fight with such force?  
  
Mikey was already standing on the roof-edge, peeking into the side-street below. Raph had been pushed back, literally, with his back nearly against the wall. And his back would have been completely against the wall if there hadn’t been Mittens taking cover behind him.  
  
Leo peeked down into the side-street as well.  
  
“I think we need a plan. Maybe we should…,” he started, but got cut short because Mikey jumped down on the fire escape and started climbing down.  
  
A loud “Booyakasha!” moments later signaled that Mikey had entered the fight.  
  
Leo looked over to Donnie who just shrugged and jumped down on the fire escape too.  
  
The blue-clad turtles just blew a raspberry before he followed his brothers.

* * *

“Hey, what took you?” they were greeted by Raph.  
  
“I had to figure out what Mittens had meant!” Mikey explained while he knocked one of their opponents out with his nunchucks.  
  
“Okay, Mittens, next time you can’t talk in whole sentences, call Donnie, will ya?” Raph said into Mittens’ direction.  
  
The answer was another hiss.  
  
“They are all wearing these golden neck collars!” Donnie pointed out when he blocked an attack with his bo.  
  
“You don’t say!” Raph gave back.  
  
“Try to get one of these collars!” Donnie commanded.  
  
“Seriously, Donnie, I don’t think it’d be after April’s fancy,” Mikey answered.  
  
Donnie would have facepalmed if he hadn’t been in the middle of a fight.  
  
“No,” he said. “But it could help us to find out more about these guys.”  
  
“Gotcha!” Leo called out.  
  
He jumped up high in the air and landed behind one of the men, letting his katana blade slide under the collar. He then kicked the man in the back and caught the cut-off collar in one hand.  
  
Moments later they had managed to either knock out their opponents or their opponents had betaken themselves to flight.  
  
The turtles looked at each other and then tucked their weapons away.  
  
“Now that wasn’t so hard,” Raph pointed out.  
  
“It wasn’t AFTER the cavalry had arrived,” Mikey added with a grin and pointed to his chest with his thumb. This earned him a knock on the head by Raph.  
  
“Ouch!” Mikey rubbed his head and watched his brother huffily as Raph walked past him with a smirk.  
  
Mikey then wanted to turn to Mittens who had stayed close to the wall the entire fight, but in that moment he heard her shriek anxiously.  
  
The four brothers turned around and looked at Mittens, only to find out that she had been grabbed by one of their not-so-knocked-out opponents. Mittens struggled to get free, but the man held her in a tight grip.  
Mittens’ first attempt was to keep struggling and somehow squirm free, but then she remembered something. She put both feet on the ground and then jumped backwards with all her strength. The man hit the wall with his back and let go of Mittens who immediately ran over to Mikey and grabbed his arm, looking back to her attacker anxiously.  
  
The man was still conscious, so Raph marched over to him and knocked him out with a punch.  
  
Then the red-clad turtle looked over to Mittens.  
  
“Not bad, fl… Mittens. I mean Mittens,” he corrected himself.  
  
Mittens straightened up smiling proudly.

* * *

“I am sorry, Mistress!” the young man kneeling in front of the mysterious woman said.  
  
“No, you aren’t!” the woman answered. “But you will be if you don’t bring her to me soon!”  
  
“The cat is not the problem, Mistress,” the man explained. “It’s those turtles. They protect her! And we don’t seem to be able to defeat them.”  
  
The woman clenched her fists and got up from her seat.  
  
“Are you telling me you are too weak to defeat them?”  
  
“They are skilled fighters, Mistress, and we can’t use firearms or we might hurt the cat.”  
  
“DON’T hurt the cat!”  
  
“I know, Mistress, but this limits our option to capture her.”  
  
“So fighting doesn’t seem to work,” the woman pondered. “Maybe we have to try something else.”  
  
She just stood there, thinking for a few moments. “You can go now.”  
  
The man got up hastily and left.  
  
The woman turned around and walked over to the window. Day was dawning already, the golden morning light was shining through the big window and lit the room. No, it was no room, it was a hall. The walls were full of paintings of cats. There were the chains on one side of the hall, but today no big cat was tied up there.  
  
The woman walked over to a man-size statue near the window. It was the statue of some sort of humanoid cat, standing upright, the features were those of a woman, she was wearing a form-fitting dress and neck-collar.  
  
The woman let her fingers slide over the statue’s face.  
  
“Soon, Bastet,” she said, “you will be mine.”


	5. Bastet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It turns out the people that are after Mittens are members of a new street gang - a street gang with a fondness for cats.

“Guys! Guys!“ Donnie called out from inside his lab. “I need to show you something!”  
  
Moments later Leo and Raph entered the lab and walked over to Donnie’s workplace where the turtles’ genius was seated behind his laptop, his eyes pinned to the screen.  
  
“What is it, Donnie?” Leo asked as he looked at the screen over Donnie’s shoulder.  
  
“I did some research on the neck collars and found this,” the purple-clad turtle explained.  
  
He pushed a few buttons on the keyboard, and some pictures showed up on the screen.  
  
“These are some pics I found according to rumors of a new street gang,” he went on with his explanation. “And now check this out.”  
  
He zoomed in on some pics so that the golden neck collars the guys shown in these pics were wearing were more visible.  
  
“That’s the same neck collars these guys were wearing the other day!” Leo pointed out.  
  
“Exactly!” Donnie confirmed. “And these neck collars show up in any pic that can be found in relation to this new street gang.”  
  
“So what do we do now?” Raph asked. “I don’t think we can look this new street gang up in the telephone book.”  
  
“No, but we know someone who might know something about them,” Leo said. “Let’s pay Fong a visit!”  
  
“Alright! Bash some Purple Dragons!” Raph cried out with a grin.  
  
“No, Raph, we have to ask them questions!” Leo countered.  
  
Raph twisted his mouth. “Can we bash them after that?”  
  
Leo smirked. “Sure!”  
  
Raph answered with a smirk of his own.  
  
Donnie finally got up and looked at his brothers, realizing for the first time that the youngest one was missing. Man, how he hated it when he was so caught up in his work that he didn’t seem to get the most obvious things.  
  
“Where’s Mikey?” he asked.  
  
“Have a guess,” Raph gave back.

* * *

In Mittens’ little toolshed she and Mikey were sitting on the couch, their feet resting on the coffee table, a bowl of popcorn on the couch between them, and watching a movie.  
  
“Oh, I hope so much that nothing bad happens to them and they arrive in America safe and sound!” Mittens pointed out.  
  
Mikey blinked a few times. “You don’t know? The Titanic sinks.”  
  
“No spoilers, Mikey!” Mittens said dispraisingly.  
  
“Sorry, Mittens, but that’s no spoiler, it’s a historical fact,” Mikey explained.  
  
“Nooooooooo…meooooooow!” Mittens cried out, quickly turning her head to face Mikey, her eyes widened in shock.  
  
“I’m sorry, Mittens,” Mikey said and patted the cat-mutant’s head. “Maybe we should ask Donnie to add history to your lessons.”  
  
Mittens was still shocked as she turned her eyes back to the TV-screen, meowing silently which she usually did when she was insecure.  
  
But the meowing got more silent over time and finally faded.  
  
At the scene were Jack and Rose kissed for the first time on deck the Titanic Mittens spoke up again.  
  
“Why do humans do that?” she asked.  
  
“Kissing?” Mikey asked.  
  
“Yeah, I never got it,” Mittens explained. “Cats kiss totally different.”  
  
“How do cats kiss?” Mikey asked as he turned his head to look at Mittens.  
  
“Rubbing cheeks, touching noses,” Mittens answered casually. “Although now that I am nearly a human myself I wonder what a human kiss might feel like. I mean, humans must do that for a reason.” She turned her head to face Mikey, and was surprised to find him staring at her, his eyes locking with hers.  
  
“You kno….meow,” she added silently.  
  
“Wanna try?” Mikey asked without breaking their gaze.  
  
Another silent meow was the answer. He wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a yes or not, but as he leaned in closer and Mittens didn’t back away he was pretty sure “yes” was the right translation.  
  
Their lips were only inches apart when suddenly Mikey’s T-phone rang, the ring tone causing them to jump apart.  
  
Mikey quickly reached for his T-phone, picking it up.  
  
“M…M…Mikey here,” he stammered.  
  
Whoever was on the other end of the line said something and Mikey nodded.  
  
“Okay, I’ll meet you there,” he said and then got up.  
  
“Sorry, Mittens, gotta go!” he explained and was out of the toolshed in no time.  
  
Mittens looked after him, blinking a few times.

* * *

When Mikey arrived at their meeting point later that night, his brothers were already waiting impatiently.  
  
“What took you?” Leo asked.  
  
“Yeah, didn’t flea… Mittens want to let you go?” Raph added.  
  
Mikey looked from Leo to Raph, then back to Leo and mumbled, “Sorry.”  
  
He wouldn’t tell them what really had kept him – the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about that whole Mittens-kissing-situation. He knew that he had wanted to kiss her right then, that it had felt like a dream, but when his T-phone had snapped them back to reality, it had been so strange that he had to leave as fast as possible. He knew he should have said something smart and flirty like, “We can catch up on this later” or “Postponed is not abandoned”, but instead he couldn’t have gotten out of there soon enough.  
  
And so he had stopped on his way to the place where his brothers were waiting several times to take a deep breath or shake his head fiercely to get rid of these thoughts about Mittens which – obviously – didn’t work because he sighed again as he went over to his brothers.  
  
Leo raised an eye-brow when he saw that.  
  
“Don’t mean to ignore you, but we got work to do,” he said to Mikey. “I’ll ask you about that long face later. Promise!”  
  
And with that he jumped down on the fire escape, followed by Donnie and Raph.  
  
“Okay,” Mikey mumbled sadly before he followed suit.

* * *

Fong and three of his men were sitting at a table, playing poker when suddenly there was a loud noise of breaking glass and moments later the turtles landed on the floor of the hall. They had jumped through the window.  
  
Fong and his men jumped to their feet, grabbing their knives.  
  
“No need for that, Fong,” Leo said. “We just want to ask some questions.”  
  
“Oh, yeah?”, Fong gave back. “Why don’t you ask this?”  
  
And with that he and his men attacked.  
  
Raph heaved a sigh. “I love it when they do that!”  
  
And the next moment he had drawn his sais and entered the fight.  
  
Leo drew his katanas and followed along as did Donnie.  
  
It took Mikey one more moment to get ready for the fight, but that moment was enough for one of the other Purple Dragons who were in that hall, but not at the table to sneak up on him. But the moment the man lifted his hand holding a knife to stab Mikey in the back, he was hit in the face by Donnie’s bo.  
  
The second-youngest turtle jumped over to his brother to take his bo back.  
  
“Focus, Mikey!” he commanded.  
  
“Oh, right, focus!” Mikey gave back, drawing his nun chucks, furrowing his brows.  
  
When another Purple Dragon attacked him, Mikey knocked him out quite easily.  
  
“Do you mind? I’m trying to focus here!” he cried out.  
  
It only took the turtles a little time to take down the Purple Dragons. Soon they were either knocked out or lying on the floor semi-conscious – well, except for Fong who was pushed against the wall by Leo.  
  
“Where were we?” the blue-clad turtle asked. “Oh, right, you were about to answer our questions.”  
  
Fong just nodded anxiously.  
  
“There’s a new street gang in town,” Leo said. “What do you know about them?”  
  
“Depends on which gang you mean,” Fong answered. “There are a few that try to get enough street reputation to make it.”  
  
“They’re wearing golden neck collars,” Leo clarified.  
  
“Oh, these.” Fong smiled. “They are in fact the most annoying ones. Quite good equipment if you bear in mind that they have only been around for a few months. Must have one good patron. Or leader. Or both.”  
  
“And who is it?”  
  
“Are you serious?” Fong raised an eye-brow. “How should I know? We don’t usually give get-together-parties to introduce the new gangs to the established ones.”  
  
“Then what do you know about them?”  
  
“All I know is that the neck collars are their trademarks,” Fong answered. “And they call themselves ‘Busters’ or something like that.”  
  
“Is that all?” Leo asked, narrowing his eyes.  
  
“That’s all,” Fong confirmed.  
  
Leo look him in the eye one more second before he let go of him and stepped back.  
  
Fong brushed of the dust from his vest and rearranged it.  
  
“How come you don’t know anything about this new street gang?” Leo asked again.  
  
“Heh, what do you think it’s like when two street gangs clash? We exchange business cards before we have a real go at each other?” he gave back.  
  
Leo signaled his brothers that they were leaving.  
  
While they did so, Raph said, “Well, as much as I hate the Purple Dragons, I really like their way of thinking.”  
  
“Raph, you’d like anyone and anything that would allow you to bash some butts right away,” Leo said, rolling his eyes.  
  
“You got that right, fearless leader!” Raph answered with a grin.

* * *

The mistress of said street gang was in her hall right now, standing at the large window and staring out into the night when one of her henchmen entered.  
  
“Mistress, we have spotted the cat,” he said as he knelt down. “Do you want us to capture her?”  
  
“No,” the woman answered.  
  
“No?!” the man repeated disbelievingly.  
  
“Trying to capture her hasn’t worked out so far,” she explained as she turned away from the window and faced her henchman. “I want you to bring me to her. I might be able to talk to her.”  
  
“But, Mistress…”  
  
“No buts!” the woman gave back. “Get my escort ready!”  
  
“As you wish,” the man said, bowing his head before he got up and left the hall.  
  
The woman turned to the statue of a humanoid cat next to the window and let her fingers slide over the statue’s face like she had done so many times before and smiled.

* * *

Mittens was headed for the park. She knew she had promised Mikey to stay inside and not go out all by herself as long as these people were after her, but after Mikey had left tonight, she had felt as if the walls of the toolshed had been closing in on her. She had to get out of there. She had told Murakami that she was going to the park and she had her T-phone with her, as always attached to the waistband of her shorts. So what could possibly go wrong? She would be careful. But right now, she needed some fresh air and trees and green, no matter what.  
  
She landed on a roof-top and stopped for a second. Something didn’t seem right and she perked up her ears.  
  
And suddenly there were five men up on the roof, blocking her way, but they didn’t come closer. Mittens took a few steps back, reaching for her T-phone.  
  
“No need for that,” a female voice said. “I just want to talk to you.”  
  
Mittens turned around to find a young woman standing there, flanked by four men. All the men were wearing these ominous golden neck collars. But she was more surprised by the woman’s outfit. She was wearing a form-fitting white dress, a golden neck collar which was studded with even more gems then those of her henchmen and worked more delicately. The woman had shoulder-length black hair and was wearing a golden headdress and golden armlets. Her eyes were encircled with black kohl and her lips were dark-red. All in all, she looked very different from the women Mittens had seen in her life so far.  
  
“What do you want?” The cat-mutant asked.  
  
“My name is Sonya,” the woman answered. “And I am here to make an offer you just can’t refuse.”

* * *

The next day Leo, Raph and Donnie were in the living room. Leo was watching a re-run of Space Heroes and Raph was reading a comic book – or pretending to do so. He was secretly watching the show and Leo to make sure he didn’t miss a chance to complain about the stupidity of that show whenever one of Leo’s favorite scenes was on. And Donnie was typing away on his laptop, trying to find some more information on this new street gang.  
  
Raph had just opened his mouth to tell Leo what an idiot Captain Ryan was, when Donnie expelled a frustrated groan.  
  
“You okay, Donnie?” Leo asked, turning around to face his brother.  
  
“This doesn’t make any sense!” the brainiac blurted out. “Why should they wear Egyptian neck collars and call themselves Busters? There is absolutely no sense in that!”  
  
“And how would their name or their taste in jewelry help us to fight them anyway?” Raph gave back.  
  
“Any information could help!” Donnie countered.  
  
“I’d hit them just as hard if they call themselves Busters or Mosquitos,” Raph answered with a shrug.  
  
He thought about it for a moment, then added with a smirk; “Okay, maybe a little harder if they call themselves Mosquitos.”  
  
“Guys, I think Mittens is in trouble!” Mikey cried out as he came running into the living room.  
  
“Again?” Raph mumbled which earned him a warning look from Leo.  
  
“Her T-phone goes right to voicemail, and I left her like twenty messages. And then I tried this whole red-blinking-dot-thingy Donnie showed me, but there is no red blinking dot at all!”  
  
Raph and Leo looked at Donnie.  
  
“He means he tried to locate her T-phone,” their purple-clad brother explained. “And if she had turned it off there’s no signal. So it can’t be located. So no worries, Mikey. She has just turned off her T-phone.”  
  
“And why would she do that? Mittens never turns off her T-phone!”  
  
“Relax, Mikey,” Leo said. “Maybe she just needed some time for herself. I bet she will call you back as soon as she gets your messages.”  
  
Mikey narrowed his eyes, thinking of this nearly-kissing-situation at their last meeting, and if that was the reason why she had turned off her T-phone, it didn’t make him feel any better.  
  
“But…,” he mumbled.  
  
Leo placed a hand on his youngest brother’s shoulder. “If you don’t hear back from her by tonight we will check it out. But until then, just relax.”  
  
Mikey took a deep breath, then nodded silently.  
  
At that moment Mikey’s T-phone rang. His first thought was that it was Mittens calling him back, and he excitedly looked at the screen to make sure it was her, but his excitement dampened a bit when he realized it was Murakami.  
  
“Hello, Murakami-san,” Mikey said, picking up the phone.  
  
His eyes shot open in shock to whatever Murakami was telling him.  
  
“Thanks, Murakami-san, we’re gonna check it out,” he finally said and hung up.  
  
His brothers were looking at him expectantly while he did so.  
  
“Murakami-san said Mittens told him yesterday night she was going to the park and would come back in a few hours, but she didn’t. She’s still not back home,” Mikey said. “I told you she was in trouble! I told you! But you weren’t listening to me! Again!”  
  
“Maybe she just lost track of time and had to find another hideout for the day,” Leo suggested.  
  
“No,” Mikey gave back. “Mittens is in trouble. You gotta believe me!”  
  
In a way Mikey was a bit relieved. He was worried about Mittens, very worried, but it meant that she wasn’t mad and thus didn’t answer his messages because of the nearly-kiss.  
  
“But she could be anywhere!” Leo pointed out. “I have no idea where we should start looking.”  
  
“But we know who is after her. We should start with these Buster-guys,” Mikey gave back.  
  
“And where should we start there?” Donnie asked. “We don’t have any information on them besides their neck collars.”  
  
“You mean, you didn’t have.” April’s voice sounded from the lair’s entry and moments later the red-head teenager walked over to her friends. “But thanks to me we know a lot more about them.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Leo asked.  
  
“Well, thanks to the neck collar and the fact that I pay attention in my history-class we knew that it was a neck collar designed after the neck collars in Old Egypt,” April explained. “And Donnie found some information about the goldwork on the plate Raph snatched from one of these street gang-guys. So we could narrow the search to some goldsmiths here in New York. Okay, to narrow it on New York was a bit risky because these neck collars could have been produced anywhere. But why should a street gang based in New York let their trademarks be made anywhere else? So I went goldsmith hopping with the neck collar, asking around for whom it has been made. I said I found it on the streets and want to return it to its owner myself because I am a good girl scout. And tadaaa, I was successful! It was the third goldsmith who made some of these neck collars and he gave me an address.” She got a note out from her bag and handed it to Leo.  
  
“You’re amazing!” Donnie cried out, than cleared his throat. “I mean, good work, April.”  
  
April answered with a smile.  
  
Mikey ran over to April and hugged her so tightly the girl gasped for air. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”  
  
“You’re…welcome,” she uttered due to lack of oxygen.  
  
When Mikey let go of her April took a deep breath.  
  
“Let’s go, guys!” the youngest turtle called out. “We have to save Mittens!” And with that he wanted to run out of the lair, but was stopped by Leo.  
  
“Mikey!” the Turtles’ leader called out which made his brother stand rooted to the spot. “We need a plan!”  
  
Mikey faced his brother. “Can’t we make something up on our way there?”  
  
“Do you know where we have to go to?” Leo countered.  
  
Mikey scratched the back of his head with a sheepish grin. “Okay, you got me there.”  
  
Leo answered with an annoyed grunt.

* * *

It turned out the address April had given them was the villa of some rich man’s daughter who had inherited her parents’ fortune after their death some years ago. The turtle brothers had no idea if Mittens really was there, but it was their only clue, so they agreed on sneaking in and having a look around. The villa had real tight security but Donnie was sure he would be able to bypass it. And he was right about that – at least until now.  
It was already night-time and they had managed to cross the garden, reach the villa and get inside through a ventilation pit. They were now in one of the villa’s corridors, one that was barely used. At least that was what Donnie had said when he had looked at the blueprints he had been able to find on the internet by hacking into some database.  
  
They were making their way down the corridor, stopping at its end. While Donnie was checking their next move on the blueprints his brothers had a look around.  
  
“He, guys, smile!” Mikey cheered. “We are on TV!”  
  
And with that he waved at the security camera on the wall.  
  
“What?! Donnie!” Leo called out to his younger brother while drawing his katanas and cutting the camera off.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Leo,” Donnie answered. “The blueprints don’t say anything about cameras in this part of the building.”  
  
“So what we do now?” Raph asked.  
  
At that moment an alarm signal sounded through the corridor and some sort of security walls shot up, capturing the turtles in there.  
  
“I guess we wait,” Leo commented.

* * *

Later that night they were led into a hallway by some watchmen who were wearing these ominous neck collars. At least they were at the right building. Their weapons had been taken away from them and their hands were tied to their backs. There was a big window at the front, an Egyptian looking cat-statue next to it, a throne in front of it, and on the throne a woman in a white form-fitting dress with shoulder-length black hair, a golden neck collar and a golden headdress was seated. And next to her throne a young woman was lying on her side on some cushions, propping herself up on her elbow. And this young woman looked different. She had cat ears, her hands and feet looked more like paws and she was covered in black fur. She was wearing the same white dress as the mistress, and she was wearing a golden neck collar as well. And something looked really familiar about her.  
  
“Mittens!” Mikey cried out.  
  
“Mikey!” The cat-mutant answered and jumped to her feet. She was about to run over to her friends, when the mistress stopped her.  
  
“Bastet,” she said. “Behave according to your status!”  
  
“Oh, yeah, right,” Mittens stammered, stood up straight and turned to face her mistress. It was then that the turtles saw her long hair has been pulled back into a French braid. “May I get closer to them, Mistress?”  
  
“You may, Bastet.”  
  
“Bastet!” Donnie whispered. “Of course! Bastet, not Buster! The Egyptian Cat-Goddess! Why didn’t I figure that out?!”  
  
Mittens took a few steps closer until she was in front of Mikey.  
  
“Mittens, what are you doing here?” the orange-clad turtle asked. “I…We thought you were in trouble and then we find you here lying on some cushions in a new outfit, having a good time. And what happened to your markings?”  
  
“Oh, that,” Mittens said with a grin as she moved one hand to her right cheek. “It’s just hair dye. But Mistress wants me to be all black. And she gave me these beautiful jewelry and the dress and she told me that she has always been looking for someone like me – a true Bastet, an Egyptian goddess. That’s why she gave me a new name. And she wants me to be by her side all the time, and she treats me like a princess – or goddess – and her servants are so nice. And tomorrow I’m going to accompany her to some event to show her business partners what a beautiful creature I am!” Mittens grinned from ear to ear.  
  
“Are you crazy?!” Raph burst out. “I mean, you’re crazy! This woman leads a street gang! Her people steal and fight and kill. You really want to be their pet?”  
  
“Pet? No, I am no pet, I am their goddess,” Mittens answered insecurely.  
  
“Mittens,” Mikey replied. “Raph is right. These are bad people. Do you really want to stay with them?”  
  
Mittens answered with a silent meow and turned around to face her mistress.  
  
“Bastet, come back here,” she ordered and when Mittens hesitated one of the men grabbed Mittens’ arm and shoved her back on her cushions. The cat-mutant was caught by surprise and was just lying there, blinking disbelievingly. Wasn’t she supposed to be treated as a goddess?  
  
“You turtles have kept me long enough from having Bastet by my side,” the mistress said. “And I, Sonya, Mistress of the Bastests, therefore sentence you to death.”  
  
“Death?” Mittens repeated. “Wait, no…meoooowwww!”  
  
Mittens watched in shock as the men who had brought her friends here took a few steps back, leaving the turtles in the middle of the hallway as the floor within a radius of five meters around them lowered and finally left them in some sort of a small arena.  
  
Leo looked at the closed gate behind which cat-like eyes were glowing and roaring could be heard.  
  
He sighed. “Now that doesn’t look good.”  
  
Mittens jumped to her feet and wanted to run over to the arena.  
  
“Bastet, I told you to stay here!” Sonya called out.  
  
“I am not your pet!” Mittens gave back.  
  
“You have no idea,” the woman gave back with a grin and pushed a button on one of her bracelets, and suddenly Mittens felt a sharp pain in her neck. It felt like the neck collar was on fire.  
  
“Nice jewelry, isn’t it?” Sonya grinned. “But I love the extras.”  
  
Mittens tried to ignore the pain as good as she could although it made breathing rather difficult, but managed to make it to the edge of the arena. She looked back at Sonya and then slid over the edge, letting herself fall down and hoping that her cat-instincts would kick in and she would land on her feet. And she did. But it was a rather hard landing so she fell down on her knees.  
  
The pain in her neck stopped which meant Sonya must have stopped pushing the button, and she could hear her cry out hysterically, “Don’t let the predators in! Don’t hurt the cat! Bring her back to me!”  
Mittens stumbled over to Mikey, tearing the ropes on his hands apart with her claws. She did so with the other turtles’ ropes as well.  
  
“What now?” Mikey asked.  
  
“I dunno,” Leo gave back.  
  
Then the floor of the arena moved upwards again and they were surrounded by Sonya’s henchmen who were aiming guns at them.  
  
“Any instructions, fearless leader?” Raph whispered to his brother.  
  
“Improvise!” Leo gave back.  
  
“That’s my favorite!” Raph gave back and with that he jumped and kicked one of the men in the stomach before he could shoot his gun. Raph then took the gun and shot at the lighting, and soon the hallway was dark. Sonya’s men were clueless, they had no idea where to aim their guns because they were afraid they could hurt their mistress or the cat – which was even worse in consideration of the punishment.  
One after one of them was grabbed from behind and knocked out.  
  
When another group of Sonya’s men arrived at the hallway with flashlights moments later they found their mistress tied to her throne, her men unconscious and the front window was open.  
  
Sonya’s eyes were burning with anger, so her men hesitated to untie her. It sure wouldn’t end nice for them.

* * *

The turtles and Mittens had arrived at a side street and stopped for a moment to make sure they haven’t been followed. Mittens was leaning against the wall of a building, catching her breath.  
Leo looked at his brothers.  
  
“I think we are safe,” he announced.  
  
Mikey looked over to Mittens, she had that hounded look on her face he knew so well. Mittens always looked like this when she felt cornered and helpless. Mikey walked over to her. He grabbed the neck collar with both his hands, tore it apart and let it fall to the ground.  
  
“There,” he said with a warm smile. “It didn’t suit you anyway.”  
  
Mittens looked at him for a few moments, and before Mikey could react, Mittens flung her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, pressing her lips on his and gently kissing him. Mikey’s eyes shot open in surprise, before he closed his eyes as well, moved his hands to Mittens hips and responded the kiss.  
  
His brothers just stood there, jaws dropped, eyes gaping in surprise.  
  
Leo finally found his voice.  
  
“We…uhm…we wait…uhm…over there,” he stammered, turned around and walked around the corner, dragging Donnie and Raph with him.

* * *

The next night Raph was waiting outside Mittens’ toolshed for the cat-mutant to show up for their training session. He was standing on the roof-edge and thinking.  
  
He had no idea what was going on. Since he had seen Mikey and Mittens kiss he had been thinking about what it would feel like to kiss a girl. This was so not like him! He was Raph, the hot-head, the tough guy who didn’t care about things like romance, or girls. And the fact that Mikey had been kissed before him bugged him. Mikey was the innocent one and his whole crush on Mittens had just been something Raph could tease his youngest brother about. But he had never thought of that crush getting serious. Who would have thought Mittens was returning Mikey’s feelings?  
  
Was he…jealous? Raph thought about it, and yes, it pretty much looked like he really was jealous. And still, he couldn’t stop thinking about kissing a girl. Maybe if he asked Mittens she might kiss him as some sort of thank you-gift for saving her life so many times. Sure, he could ask April about that too, but April was more like a sister to him, and you don’t ask your sister to kiss you. Mittens, on the other hand, was hot – for a flea bag. Or cat-mutant. Maybe now that he had stopped calling her flea bag when he was talking to her he should stop thinking of her as a flea bag as well. So it was cat or cat-mutant from now on.  
  
At that moment Mittens left the toolshed and walked over to him. Raph knew Mikey wasn’t around. He had been walking around the lair with a dreamy look on his face and sending Mittens sweet text messages when Raph had left for their training session.  
  
“Hi there, Raph!” Mittens greeted him as she stopped next to him.  
  
“Hello, Mittens,” Raph answered, and when he turned to look at her he realized that she was back to wearing her usual outfit, shorts and shirt, and that she again had her white markings.  
  
“Your markings are back,” he said.  
  
“Yeah,” Mittens answered with a smile. “It took me like twenty-five baths to get the dye out, but now I’m back to normal.”  
  
Raph thought that he had never seen her smile that much and so he thought it must have had something to do with Mikey’s text messages.  
  
“So, you and Mikey?” the mutant turtle asked.  
  
Mittens grinned from ear to ear and nodded enthusiastically.  
  
“Mittens, may I ask you for a favor?” Raph asked.  
  
Mittens looked at him surprised.  
  
“Of course,” she said.  
  
“It’s complicated. I want you to give me something.”  
  
Mittens blinked. “Okay. I am just…surprised,” she said. Something about the way Raph was looking at her made her nervous. This was not the Raph she knew. And she decided she should point that out. “But that’s not like you, Raph. You usually take what you want without asking.”  
  
“You’re right,” Raph gave back and without any warning he pulled her close and forcefully pressed his lips on hers.  
  
Mittens knew exactly what she had to do now – push him away, slap him or maybe even scratch his face and then leave. Yeah, that was what she should do. Then why for cat’s sake was she doing something completely different? Why did she wrap her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, thus not only responding, but deepening the kiss? She had no answer to that. And “Why?” was the last thought that crossed her mind before thinking became less and less important and feeling took over.


End file.
